Monkees announce tour will cross the US this summer

Monkees announce tour: The Monkees reunion tour will kick off July 15 and could expand into an international tour, according to band member Micky Dolenz. Tickets for the Monkees summer tour will go on sale May 3.

The Monkees (from l. to r.: Michael Nesmith, David Jones, Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork) reunite in California in 1996. The new Monkees reunion tour, with Nesmith, Dolenz, and Tork, will begin this July.

Tour dates run from the Port Chester performance to Aug. 18, when the trio will perform in Portland, Ore. But Dolenz said the tour may continue after their US journey.

“I can be frank and tell you we are thinking about taking it everywhere," he said. "There's always been interest in Japan, Eurasia and Australia and New Zealand. There's a huge fan base in South America and Brazil in specific, which we've never really tapped into. There's also talk about Europe and the U.K."

The tour will be titled “A Midsummer’s Night with the Monkees” and the three will play their band’s songs in the order in which they were released. Photos and video footage will also be used to look back on their history.

General tickets will go on sale May 3.

The band came together when producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider came up with the idea for a TV show that followed a band after the success of the Beatles’ 1964 movie “A Hard Day’s Night.” The four Monkees members were cast for the show.

“The Monkees really becoming a band was like the equivalent of Leonard Nimoy really becoming a Vulcan,” Dolenz told the Associated Press later of the band’s inception.

Today, the group is remembered for hits such as “Daydream Believer,” “I’m a Believer,” and “Last Train to Clarksville.”